


Oh, Soldier

by VeteranKlaus



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Blood, Death, M/M, Vietnam 1968, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-12 19:25:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18016913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeteranKlaus/pseuds/VeteranKlaus
Summary: A glimpse into Klaus' time in Vietnam.





	Oh, Soldier

 Klaus really believed that he had the worst luck. Truly, no one must be as unlucky as him. Hardly twenty minutes after escaping from the clutches of his torturers he found himself in yet another, arguably worse, situation.

The briefcase thing he had stolen on his way out was supposed to be just that; a briefcase, maybe with some money or an expensive, fancy gun in it that he could pawn and use the money for a much needed high. He had opened it in excitement, and in a flash of blue – the same blue as Five’s – he found himself sitting on the floor of a soldiers’ tent and ushered to his feet, a helmet thrown onto his head and a pair of pants shoved into his hands, quickly followed by a gun.

Before then, Klaus had never held a gun, never looked down its’ scope, taken safety off, and fired. Now, it seemed, he had no choice.

He was just lucky that he didn’t have to use it immediately. They had been escorted out as choppers’ flew overhead and the horizon was alight with flashes of orange and red and yellow, gunshots reaching his ears.

He only caught a break when they got on the bus and he was staring out of the window, still trying to process what was going on, when the blonde man who had seen him earlier spoke up.

“First time in country?” He asked, eyes warm and smile inviting.

Klaus swallowed around the lump in his throat, tongue dry and heavy, and dumbly tried to think of what to say. With no witty comment coming to mind, he simply said a breathy; “yeah.”

“Yeah, shit’s crazy, I know,” he offered, and Klaus let out a small snort.

“Yeah,” he repeated, looking down at his lap.

“You’ll adjust. My name’s Dave.” He held out a hand, and Klaus only hesitated a second before reaching out and shaking it.

“Klaus,” he replied, offering a smile.

 

The bus stopped once to let everyone stretch their legs and go to the bathroom before continuing the long drive away from all the guns and bombs. It was hours until they stopped for the last time, late into the hot night outside the hotel they would be staying in for now until they were pulled back out into reserve trenches.

It was a relief to get out and stretch his long legs, to not hear any whizzing bombs or gunfire.

They filed into the small hotel, rooms full of mattresses and sharing the room with four other people. Luckily for Klaus, one of them was Dave.

They settled into the small room, setting their few belongings at the foot of the beds.

“You just get moved in?” One asked; a well-tanned man with dark hair and stubble steadily growing in.

“Ah, yeah, yeah, first time,” he said, trying to seem casual. Really, he had no idea what to say other than make up some story of being shipped out here for the first time. For some reason, a reason with warm eyes and a beautiful laugh, he couldn’t bring himself to reach for that briefcase again.

“Oh, lucky you, eh,” he said with a laugh, and Klaus returned it, tipping his head.

“Will,” the man said, and Klaus returned the greeting with a friendly smile.

Everyone else seemed utterly exhausted and so eager to get a hot shower – or any shower – some good food from the bar and a night of sleep with no gunshots to lull them to sleep. He got introduced to the other two men in the room – a tall blonde named Callum and a short, stalky man named Aaron – and they got some food from the bar in the hotel that played some cheesy, too-optimistic music beneath the chatter of soldiers and the swooning waitresses.

 

“Okay, wait, wait,” Dave said, laughing and trying not to choke on the fries in his mouth, “so, for some reason, you thought it would be a good idea to – to wax your ass with chocolate pudding? Seriously?” The men around them snickered into glasses of beer.

“In my defence!” Klaus exclaimed loudly, a lazy grin on his face, “I was extremely drunk and it was the best thing around!”

“Did you even have to wax your ass in the first place?” One asked, and Klaus offered a sly grin.

“The things you gotta do for a good night, eh?” He winked, and the men burst into laughter.

 

When everyone fell asleep that night, Klaus sat up in his bed, the briefcase on his lap and looking at Dave’s sleeping form on the bed beside him. Maybe, just maybe, he could stay for a little longer. After all, Five had been gone for fifty odd years and it had only been sixteen for them – he could stay here for, like, a week and it’d only be a day or two. And with the bullshit going on with his siblings right now, he thought he deserved a break from his dysfunctional family.

 

They explored what the town had to offer them, looked at the little shops and introduced Klaus to the other men and Klaus retold the chocolate pudding story. They had drinks at the bar each night and sat outside.

“You know,” Dave said one night when they were sitting outside, “when we’re not out in the trenches, it’s kind of nice. Like a little get away with the boys,” he said, and Klaus looked up at the clear sky, felt the warm breeze on his tanning skin. He could hear the soldiers’ loud, drunken laughter inside.

“Yeah, it is,” he agreed with a nod. David’s shoulder touched his and Klaus yawned.

“You got people back home?” He asked, and Klaus pressed his lips together.

“Sort of,” he said with a shrug, and Dave raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Feel free to continue,” he joked, and Klaus exhaled.

“Before I came here,” he said, “we were having a… family reunion, of sorts. Dad died, and I can probably count the times I’ve seen my siblings in the past fifteen years on one hand. They probably think I’m just off at a party or some shit,” he snorted, because it was true.

David pressed his lips together, not voicing his confusion. “Well, I’m sorry about your dad.”

Klaus snorted and waved a hand. “Please, don’t be. Miracle, if you ask me. He was a grade-A asshole,” he said, and David just nodded and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Well, the boys seem to like you, so you’ve got us now,” he said, and Klaus turned to look at him with a smile.

“Yeah,” he said, “I do.”

 

Dave tells him about his own family. He was born in 1940 and his father had served in World War Two, and inspired Dave to quickly join the army once he was old enough to do so. His mother was sweet and doting but losing her brother in WWII had taken a toll on her mental health, and she hadn’t been the same since. He had a younger sister who had begged him not to join the army but that, Dave said, was why he was going to come back from Vietnam a war hero and settle back with his family. Maybe find someone for himself, too.

He was reserved about his love life. He said that he wanted to settle down with someone after the war, get a small house somewhere back in America and have a large garden and a dog. He never said anything about kids or the kind of person he was interested in. When he asked Klaus the same question, it was basically the same answer.

“I mean, the idea is nice and all,” Klaus shrugged, “but my life has been… too big a mess to settle down or something. I’ve never really thought about it, honestly.”

Dave nodded his head in understanding and they went back inside.

 

On their second last night in town, they had a party.

All the soldiers went, ready to try and get drunk on whatever diluted alcohol they had and to chat up some of the girls in the area, and honestly, Klaus thought it was fun.

The music was something he could appreciate and the girls thought he was funny. They danced and played games and told each other stories of their home life.

“Oh, yeah,” Klaus laughed. Beer spilled over the glass he held, sticky on his skin, and he sipped some so it wasn’t so full. “We were just wild, man,” he snorted. “My brother, Luther, he’s huge. Like, built like a gorilla, huge. He and my other brother, Diego, they never get along. Luther’s like, such a suck up to our dad and Diego’s a mother’s boy – I, personally, side with Diego – and they always fight. Broke a statue fighting at our dad’s funeral – I thought it was great,” Klaus laughed, leaning back against the bar and talking to a group of other soldiers who accompanied him in his laughter.

“We all love each other, if you couldn’t tell,” he snorted, and he listened to other stories as he finished his beer and ordered another one.

 

The music was loud, pumping through his bones and he fell into people at some times, but it was good. Everyone was laughing and this wasn’t so bad.

At some point, he and Dave began talking again. They got some shots and linked arms as they took them, spilled some over each other and laughed, and when Klaus was pleasantly drunk they were standing off in a hallway by themselves, standing next to one another and talking in hushed voices.

Dave was hesitant, he could tell, and Klaus remembered they were in the 60s. Dave could be as gay as Klaus and have a harmful amount of internalised homophobia, but it was okay. Klaus, even in the 2000s, was used to getting beaten up for making a move on another man, and so he was alright with risking it again tonight.

He leaned down and closer, could smell alcohol on his breath and then he could taste it on his lips and tongue, and Klaus held his chiselled jaw gently and felt him set a calloused hand on his hip, warm through his shirt.

Klaus hadn’t genuinely kissed someone in a while. He hadn’t kissed someone with no intent to share some drugs and fall into a bed with them just for the sake of having sex.

This, though, this was electric. Dave’s lips were unsure and careful but at Klaus’ gentle encouragement he became more confident and leaned into him.

Klaus decided this wasn’t that bad. He felt better than he had at home for a long time.

 

 

Good things don’t last, he found out. They moved out quickly and he and Dave keep quiet about what happened for obvious reasons, but they get closer, share more touches and when everyone’s asleep or they’re alone, sometimes they’ll catch eachothers lips and Klaus would shiver under his warm hands, gentle and steady and sure.

They go to the reserve trenches, and the gunshots and bangs get closer. After a week in reserves, Klaus’ anxiety skyrocketed and he realised this won’t be all peachy. Dave tried to comfort him, told him how long he’d been out here and never even gotten a serious injury, and he told him time here went quickly.

He saw soldiers from the front line moaning and covered in blood, bullet wounds hidden under dirty bandages and crying out in pain as they got rushed to medics, and at night, Klaus sat on his bed, listening to the never-ending gunshots and shells from the trenches, miles away. He pulled out his briefcase and took in a breath, muttered an apology to Dave, and opened it. He waited for the flash of blue, expected to jolt back onto the bus, only it never happened. He closed it and opened it again and again, but it never worked.

 

Schedules were not something Klaus was familiar with, yet it came quickly to him. Every night he would sit and open his briefcase, and every night it wouldn’t work.

 

At some point, he gave up trying. Maybe he’d try once or twice a week, but he became preoccupied with learning how to properly shoot a gun, how to put on a gas mask, how to do this and that. He got closer with all the men around him, learned everything about them, and got used to the humour of war with his comrades. He also got used to being sober.

 

They were on patrol through the forest, him and Dave and Callum, when Klaus saw it. Another soldier, only they were sitting off to the side, blood trickling from the wound from where a large impalement wound was in their chest and legs. Dave and Callum didn’t see a thing.

“I think we should take a break,” Klaus said. The dead soldier was watching them with sad, tired eyes.

“Really? We’ve almost made it ‘round again,” Callum said, and Klaus shrugged, hitting his chest.

“Winded,” he said, “my little lungs can’t keep up.”

“Don’t go.”

Klaus looked to the side. The soldier was sitting, shaking his head sadly. There were tears in his eyes. “Don’t go, don’t go. There’s traps. God, if you could fucking hear me…”

Klaus let out a sigh, closing his eyes and uttering a “sorry.”

“We really ought to keep moving, Klaus,” Dave said, “sorry, but we can’t stay out here.”

“Alright, alright, just… let me go first? I have a bad feeling,” he said, and the two exchanged a look.

Before continuing, Klaus hopped to the side to grab a long stick from the ground, and he used it to search the ground in front of them before they walked there.

“Watch the right, watch the right, watch the right…”

Klaus kept his eyes from the soldier behind them, tapping to the right and, sure enough, when he hit it hard enough, the ground beside them gave away to one of the punji stick traps.

“Shit, okay, yeah. Yeah, keep up with that – stick, action,” Callum muttered.

He did. He lead the way, weaving through traps set up for them until it seemed they were in the clear.

“Shit, Klaus, how do you know that kind of shit?” Callum laughed and clapped a hand down on the back of his neck in a friendly way.

“Just luck, I guess,” he laughed, and Dave snorted.

“You’ve been lucky out here. That’s fitting. You mind that? Can we call you Lucky?”

Klaus raised his eyebrows and shrugged. “Why not?” He grinned.

 

After that, people in base called him Lucky. He, somehow, knew when there were traps nearby, or where bodies were so they could recover them, or where they were too far out. People wanted to be around Klaus, because they had a higher chance of being safe, were more likely to find the bodies of their comrades and bring them back.

 

Though the weather at the beginning had been hot, Klaus came to find that that would change drastically as monsoon season came on. The holes in their boots to drain water only got clogged up with mud and his feet were always soaking and cold, and he saw many men need to be treated for “jungle rot” as they called it. He shivered, cold and wet and muddy, at night in their filthy beds and he was about ready to sit in a fire to just get dry and warm.

 

The night before they were to get moved forwards into the trench lines, Klaus was scared. It’d been just under a month and he missed the fun of the town, the high spirits of drinking with his comrades. Now, he felt cold and miserable and scared. He saw ghosts of the deceased wandering, lost and unsure of what was going on, and Klaus could do nothing but keep his head down and pretend he didn’t see them.

“It’ll be alright, Lucky,” Dave said from beside him. “You should try and get some sleep, though. You’ll need it, Lucky. We’ll be right beside you.” Dave leaned forwards from his bed with a glance around and clapped a hand around his neck, a common gesture between the soldiers here. He leaned forwards by his cheek, breath warming his ear.

“I’ll be right there, Klaus, and then we can come back and have another party back in town.” He put a hand on his thigh. “And after, we can go home.”

Klaus tipped his head down, closing his eyes and listening to his voice.

“Yeah,” Klaus breathed, “yeah. We will.”

His lips ghosted over his cheek gently.

The briefcase didn’t work that night, either.

 

In the front lines, Klaus forgot about the suitcase. He was too busy with quick, five minute lessons on how to shoot straight and clear, too busy digging trenches and sleeping in mud.

 

He didn’t think he had the balls to kill someone, honestly. He was up for a good fist fight, sure, but to actually end someones life? Especially when he knew what would happen to them next? That was a no-go for him. Yet, in the trenches, he hardly hesitated. He saw enemies and he pointed and shot, or else they’d get him or Dave.

 

The gunshots and whistles of bombs followed him everywhere; they were there in every waking moment and echoed in his sleep. He dreamt of bodies getting thrown in blasts, of men dying from infection and blood loss in dirty ditches and traps. He heard the screams of men that had died days ago, crying out for someone to help them.

 

Getting shot was nothing like getting punched, he found out. He had gotten too distracted while they attacked and then something tore through his arm and threw him back. Pain like he’d never felt before – the torture from Hazel and Cha-Cha that felt like a lifetime ago only coming fairly close – set his nerves alight and he gasped, wide eyed and holding a hand to the oozing wound.

“Klaus!” It was Dave, crawling through the mud and keeping his head down as he got to Klaus’ side and turned his head to look at him. “Hey, hey, it’s alright – look, it’s close to the outside, it’s alright, come on,” he encouraged, trying to get his arms under him and lift him up slightly, pulling him back through hard mud.

“Go, Dave,” he hissed, trying to shrug him off, “get down, idiot!”

 

Dave hauled him back further in the trenches until he could get the medical help he needed, and he suddenly realised how poor medical technology was in the 60s compared to what it was like usually to him.

He spent his time recuperating in a haze. It struck him what was going on. He’d been in Vietnam for three months and he was forgetting that he shouldn’t be here. It was hard to count time in the trenches; there was no access to the outside world and days and weeks went by like the blink of an eye. Part of him felt more in place here, among his comrades who called him Lucky and laughed at his stories and appreciated him, than at the Umbrella Academy.

 

They were moved back into the town on their rotation just as Klaus’ rest came to an end, and from the first time they’d been in town, it seemed like everyone in his battalion had aged years, including himself. He’d never looked forwards to a semi-warm shower so much. He wondered how much hot water he’d wasted in long baths at home when here, it was a luxury.

 

The night they got into town, everyone all but collapsed onto the real mattresses. They were in the same room, Dave still on the same mattress next to his Callum on the one at the other end of the room. The one Will had slept in was empty, and it’d probably be filled with a new soldier being brought from a base further away from the fighting. Klaus’ fingers scratched the briefcase as images of bloody bodies and dead eyes flashed behind his eyelids, and when he opened the briefcase and hoped. Nothing happened.

 

It was weird, no longer being the newbie. Soldiers fresh out of training were sent up to join them and his comrades introduced them to ‘Lucky’, told them stories of how he would guide them through traps and open land, would help them find their friends bodies’.

He tried to keep the mood light for the new soldiers – he saw some of them that couldn’t be older than nineteen, Christ – and told them all of his stories from what now felt like another life.

 

They had another party before they left. Klaus took shots like it would numb what was about to happen in the next few days. He danced with them all like he never would again.

 

In a mess of hurried hands and lips, Klaus fell backwards into a far off supply closet, fists curled into Dave’s shirt and pulling him in. His back hit the wall and he hooked his long leg around Dave’s hips, fingers searching up through his hair and under his shirt.

“Klaus,” Dave muttered, “Klaus, we can’t do this. If we get caught…”

“We won’t,” Klaus replied, shaking his head, “we won’t. Y’know, in the future, there’s a time that you don’t have to worry about this. There’s whole clubs ‘n’ shit for us,” he said, and Dave laughed into his neck.

“And how would you know that, Lucky?” He asked.

Klaus’ lips twitched into a smile. “Would you believe me if I told you that I’m actually from the future?” He murmured, felt hard abs under his fingertips.

“Well, wouldn’t be the craziest thing I’ve heard out there. I trust you, Lucky.”

Dave’s hands pulled Klaus’ shirt off and Klaus did the same. Dave’s hands were strong and confident when they explored his body, warm and sure as he held him close, and god, this was better than he’d ever had, high as a kite in some crack house or outside some stingy club.

 

“You’re special,” Dave told him before they staggered out of the supply closet, “Lucky, you’re special to me.”

Klaus smiled against his shoulder, shivering when he carded his fingers through his sweat-dampened hair.

“Yeah, well, I love you too,” Klaus uttered, and Dave hesitated by him before ghosting his lips over his cheek.

“Yeah,” Dave said with a breathy laugh, “yeah, I love you.”

 

 

They got tattoos that week. A man named Archie sat with them, giving them all similar battalion tattoos.

“What’s up with the ones on your hands?” One man asked, and Klaus looked at his Ouija board tattoos.

“Oh, just some drunken fun, you know,” Klaus shrugged. “Good for waving, I guess,” he said, showing them with a wave.

“You sound like quite a party animal out of here,” one commented, and Klaus laughed softly. The track marks on his arms weren’t so visible in this light.

“I guess,” he nodded with a smile.

Dave got the same battalion tattoo and then, on the inside of his arm in the same scrawled writing, he got ‘HELLO LUCKY’ as a joke that made all the men laugh, but Klaus saw the way he looked at him and knew it went deeper.

 

Choppers flew overhead and explosions littered the No Man’s Land in front of them. Klaus threw himself into the dirt, hands above his head and he waited until the ground stopped shaking.

“Whew, that was close!” Klaus laughed, looking at Dave on the ground beside him. Dust settled in the creases of his skin, in his dimples when he let out a laugh at Klaus.

“You’re crazy Klaus,” Dave laughed, turning to peak over the sandbags.

“You love it,” Klaus grinned.

A shell whistled and crashed to his right, sent cries and screams echoing into the night, and Klaus pushed himself further against the ground.

 

They were around his bed. The first man he shot, an oozing bullet hole in his chest and in his shoulder, and then the people who had been lost today, all confused and looking around at the sleeping soldiers.

“I’m sorry,” Klaus muttered, his head in his hands. He didn’t want them to know that he could see them, didn’t want to draw attention to himself, but he remembered Lewis, one of the ones fresh from training and only nineteen, who now stood with a missing arm and a burned face.

“I’m sorry. You’re dead. You need to go on,” he whispered. He, for the first time, looked up at them, made eye contact with each of them. “You need to move on,” He said. Shock flitted across their pained faces.

 

”You can see us?” One asked; a small man with a bleeding bullet hole under his right eye. 

 

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, “you can’t stay here. You need to move on,” he urged. 

 

They bombarded him with questions. The man he’d shot screamed at him in another language, threatening him, and Klaus clamped his hands over his ears and didn’t sleep. 

 

 

It was raining, again. Rain battering down on them, thundering through the leaves and making the forest floor a giant mudslide. They were expanding their trenches off to the sides, trying to get ground to attack through the sides. The shovel in his hands went in a steady rhythm; in dirt, throw it over the side, back in dirt, over the side, throw a stone out of the way. Everyone beside him worked in quick succession, following his rhythm, and at some point they’d begun to sing. 

"Keep the home fires burnin', while your hearts are yearnin', and your lads are far from home."

It helped lift the morale slightly and Klaus, although previously not familiar with the song, learned it quickly and joined in on the sorrowful, haunting tune singing past the tired throats of tired soldiers. The poor weather conditions, however, kept their mood down. Rain dripped from his helmet, down his neck, and his hands were pale and cold, fingers caked in dry mud and new, thick, wet mud. He thrust the shovel into dirt, continued digging deeper and deeper until he couldn't feel the burn in his muscles anymore.

 

 

In the trenches they slept in little dug-outs in the side of the trenches or simply on the floor, and Klaus awoke to nearby explosions and someone shaking him.

"Klaus, get down!" Dave's eyes were wide as he pulled him from the shelf he had been resting on, and they both threw themselves to the ground on instinct as an explosion from artillery further down the trench and shook the ground. He clamped his hands over his ears, his heart pounding furiously as the bombs came closer and closer, his eyes screwed shut. 

He felt one just beside them, just out of the trenches, and he pushed himself down, covering his face and waiting for the inevitable strike that was going to send him flying through the air. And yet, it seemed to pass over them and continue on. 

 

 

The artillery bombardment lasted for hours, and they had to dig down and back and try and protect themselves as much as possible, but it was hard. When it did stop, however, everyone sat up hesitantly.

"Get on the machine guns! Now, boys!" 

Klaus scrambled to his feet, ears ringing, and being the closest to the machine gun set up in its post by him, he jumped at it. His hands shook over its grips and trigger and he watched the enemy's trench far at the other end of No Man's Land. He could hear cries and pained screams from his dying comrades in the ditches blown up by artillery, saw people hurry to fix their barbed wire that had been blown apart. 

Klaus' breath stuttered in his lungs, heart pounding in his ribcage and it was only when men started storming across No Man's Land towards them, guns shooting, that Klaus realised what he was doing. The machine gun under his hands would kill all of them in one vicious swoop, and he'd have brutally murdered all of them.

"What are you doing, Klaus?" Someone shouted. "Shoot! Klaus, shoot!"

He did. 

 

 

Many people were injured and died in the artillery bombardment and the enemy's advances, and Klaus sat with his back against a mud wall, listening to the occasional burst of machine gun fire. His head pounded with a growing headache and his throat was painfully dry. He wanted out. He wanted back to their reserve trenches or back into town, to get dry and clean and safe.

Someone sat next to him, and when Klaus looked up, it was Dave with tight lines around his eyes and a sympathetic smile. He was alright.

"How are you holding up, Lucky? You did well there," he commented, and Klaus let out a hollow laugh.

"Thanks," he muttered, running a dirty hand through his dirty hair. 

Dave's knee touched his, a gentle reassurance, and he leaned close to talk to him. "You said you were from the future, Klaus," he commented, "why don't you tell me more?"

Klaus let out a soft laugh, tipping his head back and closing his eyes. "Alright."

 

 

He told Dave everything, over the course of a few weeks anyway. When everyone was asleep and they were back in reserve trenches in a tent, they spoke.

"That briefcase I have," he said, "I stole it from some fuckers who kidnapped me. Thought I could get money for it, but when I opened it - well, you saw that."

"The blue light?" Dave said, and Klaus nodded.

"Yeah, the blue light. I didn't know it was gonna send me here, and it doesn't seem to be working again. Hey, if we're lucky I'll live out of here to see my siblings being born, at least," he joked, because it was true. They weren't even born yet, and if he got out of this war, then he might very well live out seeing them grow up and possibly go pester them once he looked sixty years old. He wondered if he wouldn't be born, then, or if there would be two of him in this timeline? Time was confusing, and Klaus was glad that wasn't his power.

 

"That's not all," he said, another night. "My siblings and I, we're..." How could he say it? He looked around at the ghosts standing off in the shadows of the tent, glowering at him. "We're special. My brother, he can time travel without some shitty briefcase. He can teleport. We thought he went missing when we were, like, thirteen, but he time travelled into the future and got stuck there. He only came back now - or, well, after like, seventeen years. And he looks thirteen still, but he says he spent fifty-odd years in the future. And my sister, she can kind of hypnotise people? She can say something and the person will do it. My other brother can throw things and control where it goes, and my other other brother is fuckin' huge, like, superhuman strength and shit. My younger brother had a monster in his chest that would fight for him, but he, ah, he died."

Dave looked, unsurprisingly, sceptical, and Klaus sighed. "Now, I know this sounds crazy, Dave, but I promise you, it's real. You saw me appear out of nowhere. If this damn machine was working, I'd take you out of here and I'd show you everything I've told you."

Dave ran a hand down his face. "I trust you, Klaus, but it does sound... well, crazy. But, wait. You said all of you were special. If that were the case, then you can do something, right? Entertain me, Lucky. What's your superpower?"

Klaus snorted, shaking his head. "Okay, touche. I wouldn't call mine a superpower, though it's... it's more of a pain in the ass." Dave raised a curious eyebrow and Klaus glanced down at his lap, cheeks warm. "I can, uh, I can see the dead. Speak to them, all that. That - that day on patrol, with the traps - I knew they were there because there was a ghost. He had died from one of the traps and was saying to watch out and that they were to the right."

"The dead?" He repeated, and Klaus nodded. 

"I know it sounds utterly crazy, but I wouldn't lie to you, Dave. Back in the future? - it sounds weird - our dad trained us, but he was a cunt and I don't like speaking to the dead. Drugs, they - they help me not hear them or see them. I'm the most sober for the longest time since I was a teenager right now," he said with a small laugh. Rehab was no help, yet landing in a war zone gave him no option but to get clean.

"Well, I don't approve of drugs, but I want to believe you," Dave said, and Klaus reached over. 

"They're here right now," he said, quietly, "a lot of them. People I've killed, comrades. Rory's in the corner, and Euan, Gary, Sam. They're all here," he said. He saw them perk up and step forward, blood trickling out of wounds. Rory had a bandage around his eyes, bloody tears staining his cheeks, and Euan look like he'd been used for target practice, too many bullet holes oozing blood from his torso. Gary was skinny and pale, bloodshot eyes and blue lips. He'd drowned in the river. The back of Sam's head had been blown off. They stepped closer, watching him intently. 

"Help us," Gary croaked, voice broken and hoarse, "Klaus, please help us, please, please, please, please Klaus, I'm not dead, I'm not dead, my parents need me, my sister - she needs me, please, Klaus."

Klaus screwed his eyes shut, shaking his head and trying to block out the begging from them all. 

"Do you actually see them?" Dave asked, hushed, and Klaus forced a sad smile and opened his eyes. He nodded.

"They're confused," he said, "don't know what's happened to them. Don't want to be dead."

Dave glanced around him at the seemingly empty room.

"Why don't you like seeing them?" He asked, and Klaus swallowed.

"It's hard," he said, "they're sad and angry and confused. The people I've shot tell me I'm going to die. Some never stop screaming, get up in my face and won't leave. They're everywhere and I can't help them or make them stop. There's some from... from when I was younger, training. They beg me to help them and when I don't they don't stop screaming, every second."

Dave set his hand on Klaus' shoulder. 

"I believe you," he said, and Klaus forced a smile. "I'm... I'm sorry you have to deal with it," he added, and he shrugged. 

"Not much I can do now. When I'm high, I don't see them, but my family hate it because I'm essentially just a useless junkie. Never tried to use it for good or see if I could do more, I just wanted them to shut up." God, speaking about it brought back the itch in his veins for a high, and he'd do anything for the way it made him fly and made all of these ghosts shut up.

"Yeah, well, you know what Klaus? Fuck them. You do what you want for your life. If you want to stay in this time, you stay here and make a new life. Or you can keep trying that, briefcase thing, go back sober. Give it a chance to see if you can do more, show them wrong."

Klaus let out a quiet snort but a smile fell onto his lips. Dave's hand clasped the back of his neck and pulled him against his warm chest. 

"And you've got me, no matter what you do."

 

 

He tried the briefcase again. Dave held on around his waist. 

It didn't work.

 

 

They ate cold meals from cans that were supposed to come with little heat patches to heat it up, but they often didn't. It was disgusting and Klaus would rather not eat it, but he had lost enough weight since his arrival. If not for the gain of new muscle, he would have looked dead.

 

 

 

Talking to Dave resurfaced feelings and memories the war had kept him too busy to think about. One night after returning from patrol, he collapsed into his cot, eager to pass out and be woken up at some new ungodly hour again, and he muttered his goodnights to the men around him. 

As soon as his head hit the pillow, he was out.

Usually, now, his dreams were nothing. He went to sleep and woke up with no recollection of if he had dreamt at all, and it was pleasant. Occasionally - mostly recently - his dreams had been getting worse, and tonight was worse. Once his eyes closed and he left the land of the living, he was back in the mausoleum, thirteen years old and curled up on hard stone against a gargoyle. 

He couldn't tell how long he'd been in there for; hours, maybe even days. The high he'd had coming in had completely worn off now, though, and the ghosts were relentless.

They cried his name in heartbroken sobs, scratched the ground beneath their bloody fingers and screamed at him because he wasn't helping him, and they'd kill him, they'd smother him in his sleep or their cold, dead hands would wrap around his thin throat until it snapped and his lips turned blue. They'd gouge his eyes out with their fingers and they'd force him to eat his own intestines and he'd die screaming and even death wouldn't want him. He'd be trapped with them for eternity, in this dark, damp mausoleum, at their non-existent mercy.

 

"Klaus."

"Klaus, please."

"Klaus, hey, Klaus!"

"Klaus!"

"Wake up, Klaus!" 

 

He shot up in his bed, clammy chest heaving for air as his ribs wound tighter and tighter around his fragile lungs.

Dave was crouched by the end of his bed, a hand on his thigh and eyes concerned. 

"Hey, deep breaths, Klaus, deep breaths like mine," Dave encouraged, and Klaus gripped his wrist as he tried to pull in air. He screwed his eyes shut until the flickering ghosts disappeared with glares and whispers, but Dave's hand grounded him helpfully.

"You've not been sleeping well lately," he commented. When he looked around, he saw his other comrades sitting up and looking at him, save for a couple of heavy sleepers.

"Yeah, Lucky. Even we've noticed it," Lewis meekly commented, and Klaus' cheeks flushed.

"'m sorry," he muttered, rubbing his eyes with shaking hands, "you can go back to sleep."

"Nah, man," one said, shaking his head, "we're in this together, y'know. Maybe talking will help," he said, and the soldiers around gave nods and murmurs of agreement.

Klaus felt... weird. Here they all were, voicing their concern and care for him, of all people, when they'd hardly know him for more than five months. He was used to arguments, to "god damnit Klaus, you're always fucking stoned," and not "let's talk."

Klaus put his forehead in his hands, letting out a shaking laugh. "Nah, nah, I'm fine. Honest. Just dreaming about all the food we'll get after this and got a bit excited, I guess," he shrugged dismissively. Dave's hand squeezed his shoulder.

"It doesn't help to bottle everything up, Klaus. C'mon, we're still out here for god knows how long, might as well get to know you a bit more than the chocolate pudding on your ass."

Klaus took in a deep breath, letting out a nervous laugh. 

"Fine," he uttered, fisting his fingers in the thin, ratty blanket over his body.

"It was just a dumb nightmare," he shrugged, unsure of where to start. He may have told Dave, but he knew that he could trust him. Everyone else would think he was crazy if he said he saw the dead, but not Dave.

"My dad was... he was kind of a cunt. Never got on, really. The whole 'no talking at the table' shtick and everything. I had some stupid fear of the dark and of ghosts as a kid, and he - Christ - he hated it. 'Fear is weakness' and all that," he said. The cold of the mausoleum seeped back into his bones, the dirt on his face feeling like the dust of the tomb. He closed his eyes but he saw the ghosts flash behind his eyelids. Instead, he fixed his gaze on his fiddling fingers.

"To get me over the fear he, uh, he took a pretty hands-on approach, I guess. He took me to a mausoleum, y'know, those crypt tomb places, and he uh, he threw me in one and locked me there for hours at a time." Klaus let out a hesitant laugh, scratching the back of his hand and shrugging. "Guess I never really, ah, got over that, I guess."

He glanced up awkwardly, seeing shocked expressions and raised eyebrows. 

"But that was years ago, y'know, and it was just some dumb childish fear-"

"Klaus," Dave said, breathless, and he shook his head in disapproval. "That's... that's -"

"Fucked up," one man said angrily, and Klaus startled. Everyone in the tent seemed to agree, angrily muttering comments about it and Klaus felt his throat tighten. His eyes stung and he closed them, smiled sadly. Was it bad how much he preferred these people, this scenario, to home? Even with all the guns and bombs and death, at least people here cared about him.

"Are you okay, Klaus?" Dave asked, and Klaus tipped his head back.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm... great," he said with a quiet laugh, "great."

 

 

One night, when Klaus was simply pretending to fall asleep, Dave got up and nudged his shoulder. When he turned to look at him he help a finger to his lips and gestured him to follow him out of their tent and around the back, and he didn't say a word as they walked around the back for five minutes, brandishing guns just in case, although Dave didn't seem tense and Klaus trusted Dave.

He led Klaus out and into a small clearing where the trees spread out and he could see up to the clear sky above them, the hundreds of thousands of stars shining above them. It hadn't rained for the past couple of days and although it was still wet, it was getting dryer and warmer and it was nice. 

Dave thumped down on the ground and gestured for Klaus to join him, which he did so.

"It's pretty, isn't it?" Dave asked, eyes up, and Klaus followed his gaze back up and he nodded in agreement. 

"Yeah, it is."

"Do you know any constellations?" He asked, and Klaus raised an eyebrow. 

"Never did that sort of thing as a kid," he admitted with a shrug. "My sister might know some, but I never bothered. Can still appreciate it being pretty though," he said, and Dave tipped his head in agreement. 

"I guess. I know a couple; here, I'll show you..."

Dave leaned closer, his shoulder against Klaus', and Klaus watched his face rather than his finger pointing out this and that in the dark sky above them. He could see the little flashing lights reflected in his eyes and he thought it was just as, if not more, beautiful than the actual sky.

Klaus wasn't sure what he and Dave had. He knew they felt, at least, similar to one another, but Klaus had never felt like this towards anyone. He'd only been interested in people if they'd been hot and made him laugh or gotten him high, and even then he'd only been interested in simple sex. With Dave, though, he didn't want that. He wanted more. He wanted to strip himself bare of all the layers of defences he'd made and strip himself bare, wanted to wake up in bed on a sunny morning next to Dave. He wanted to eat breakfast and go out for walks with him, wanted to see the golden light from sunsets highlight his face, shine in his eyes. He wanted more than just meaningless sex.

Klaus wondered if this was what love might be. He had never felt this way before, had never thought this was something he could feel, but Dave brought it out in him and he, honestly, thought that if they weren't in the middle of the war, then they'd have a shot at life together. If that was now or in the future, whenever. Klaus, for the first time in his life, wanted to settle down with someone. He'd give up all the parties and drugs if it meant Dave would be by his side.

Klaus knew what it was like to crave something. He knew what it was to feel like, without something, he would drown in the mess of his mind and the world around him, and he knew that what he felt in his chest when he saw Dave was just that, although, unlike his addictions, this went straight to the marrow in his bones, the blood pumping through his heart.

Klaus was hopelessly in love with Dave.

He kissed him, then, until he was breathless and they fell back with the force, rolling in the dust and laughing in a tangle of limbs. 

"You're something else, Lucky," Dave laughed, and Klaus grinned, sitting up by his side.

"You'd be lost without me," he said with a grin and a wink, and Dave snorted but pulled him down to kiss his lips once more.

 

 

After that night, he didn't try to open the briefcase. It stayed untouched under his bed, or cot, or wherever he was at the time, uncared for, because he felt more at home in Vietnam, 1968 with Dave by his side and guns blaring overhead.

 

 

They spent whatever time alone they could; sneaking out at night like teenagers, sharing stories and making up fantasies for the future, sharing stolen kisses in moments they were alone or everyone was asleep. He saw the fear in Dave's eyes whenever they were split on missions, smiled as Dave counted down the months they had left in this place; five, then four, then three.

It was surreal. He had spent nine months here already, and the last four months he hadn't touched the briefcase, hadn't dreamed of going back home. He doubted anyone even realised he was missing anyway; they probably never would until years in the future, once they sorted the apocalypse without him distracting them. Here, he had a place and friends who cared about his well-being, had found the love of his life. He didn't need nor want to go home. 

 

 

They went back to the front lines. He had been there twice before and yet it had never been this bad. Even with artillery bombardments in previous attacks, nothing was like being in the dead centre of the front line. Before, they'd always been off to the side, had always been there during pauses in fighting, but not anymore.

The front lines was hell on earth. He could see the enemy, they were that close. He watched people lean up a little too much and then, suddenly, they were dead, blood and brains splattered out across from them. The battalion before them had tried to advance and march across, and the machine guns of the enemies had mowed them down in less than a minute. 

Every muscle in his body shook with fear and adrenaline, with determination to get him and Dave back - they had two more months, and they were done. They'd be shipped back further into safe territory and then, eventually, America. Or, Dave had said that they'd just leave - go missing, be presumed dead, and live out their life in a small house out here after the fighting was done and live together. 

A grenade was thrown at them and they'd hurry to jump away from it or even throw it back, if they thought they had time. Choppers flew in the distance and the yelling and screaming never ended. Not once did Dave leave his side, even to sleep in knee-deep mud. 

 

 

No matter how much Klaus shot, it never ended. The returning fire never ended or weakened, the screams never lessened, the deaths never stopped. At some point, he became numb. His eyes stayed dry and he didn't think. Shoot, shoot, turn, shoot, shoot, reload. Keep on going. Watch people fall because of his gun and don't falter. Someone got shot beside him and there was no point calling for a medic because Klaus saw his ghost materialise seconds later.

Dave caught his hand and squeezed it, smiled at him because he was always smiling, even in this hell.

 

 

A bullet whizzed past his ear, singing his hair, and Klaus whipped back with a breathy laugh.

"Christ on a cracker! That was a close one, huh, Dave?" He laughed, dirty face turning into a bitter grin as he looked at his lover to the left of him.

Only, Dave didn't react. He didn't look up, didn't laugh or smile, chastise him for being distracted. He simply lay, slumped in the dirt.

"Dave?" Klaus said, hardly more than a whisper. He dropped his gun to the side and shimmied over to Dave, grabbed his shoulders and pulled him onto his back. In the centre of his chest, piercing straight through his lungs, was a gruesome, oozing bullet wound. Blood trickled out of his pale, chapped lips, and Klaus felt everything being torn away from him in that minute. 

"No, no, Dave, look at me, look at me," he said, hands hitting his cheeks to try and get his attention. He hadn't notice him get shot, didn't know how long he'd been bleeding out into dirt for.

Tendrils of fear wound around his ribs and crushed them down, squeezed the air from his lungs and he gasped, shaking hands covering the wound as he prayed to whoever was out there that no, not Dave, anyone but Dave, God please not Dave.

"Medic!" Klaus screamed, looking around with wild eyes for a medic anywhere nearby. Dave was cold, save for his blood, underneath his hands and making painful choking sounds, shaking and seizing beneath Klaus' fingertips and Klaus screamed out again. There were too many wounded, too many dead, and the medics wouldn't come for another ten minutes at least.

"No, no, Dave please, you said we'd get out of here, Dave," Klaus whimpered, streaking his blood down his cheeks and pressing their foreheads together. "Look at me, hey, it's okay, it's okay, just stay with me Dave, please," he begged.

He knew it was useless. Dave couldn't see him, couldn't hear or feel him anymore. 

"God damnit I need a medic!" Klaus screamed, fingers twisting in Dave's shirt as he tried to put pressure over the never-ending flow of blood. 

Dave didn't deserve to die.

Dave fought with braveness and ferocity, fought for his family and his friends and his home, fought for the brothers dying around him, and he didn't deserve to die. Dave was a good man, a kind soul, strong and beautiful and vulnerable and perfect. If anyone deserved to die, it was Klaus; Klaus, the junkie, the reject, the disappointment, the useless one. Not perfect, kind Dave who promised him they'd get out of here and live out their life together and they could love each other without fear. He was going to live a long life with Dave by his side and they'd die together, old and in love, and it'd be perfect.

Despite Klaus' closeness with death, he'd never known loss. He'd seen dead people and families and saw the people he killed, but he'd never lost someone until then, and he understood it, then. The pain and horror as it bloomed in his chest, devoured him like a tidal wave he couldn't be bothered to fight. His Dave was dead in his arms and he couldn't do anything to save him.

Klaus clutched his bloody corpse to his chest, not caring - wishing - that a bullet could fly and pierce his skull at any minute, and he screamed until his voice broke and then he sobbed. No one was coming to save them and Klaus wasn't going to leave without Dave, even if that meant getting shot in the open like this.

 

 

Hours later, out of the front line and in a numb trance, the briefcase worked.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
